Cuttack, June 24: The Special Task Force (STF) of the crime branch has claimed to have extracted information about some local contacts of cleric Abdul Rahman, 37, who was arrested in December last year for his alleged links with terror outfit al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).

Rahman had allegedly set up a wide network in the state, particularly in Cuttack, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur districts, from where he was reportedly carrying out anti-national activities.

He is on a 10-day remand with the STF and will be produced before the Salepur first-class judicial magistrate's court on July 1.

"During interrogation, Rahman has thrown up the names and addresses of some 12 to 15 of his close aides, who had either assisted him in recruitment for the AQIS or for arranging funds for his madrassa at Tangi," said a senior STF official.

The STF has formed a special team to interrogate Rahman based on the information shared by Delhi police.

Preliminary investigation revealed that Rahman was frequently touring various parts of the country, particularly Jharkhand and Karnataka, to raise funds for his madrassa at Tangi, on the outskirts of Cuttack.

The madrassa was subsequently closed by the district administration following Rahman's arrest.

A number of businessmen from Jharkhand's Jamshedpur are also said to have made generous contributions periodically to Rahman's madrassa. The donors included a petrol pump owner and a businessman based in Jamshedpur.

STF sources said that money was being routed through hawala channels to ensure that the administration remained clueless about the madrassa's financial transactions.

Two STF teams are also are closely working to ascertain the role of Rahman in recruiting minors mostly from Jharkhand who were being trained at his madrassa.

"We suspect that Rahman was directly collecting the money in form of donations. The names of his close associates as revealed by him during the interrogation will be thoroughly scrutinised," said the senior official.

Official sources said that about 150 students were enrolled in Rahman's madrassa and most of them were from Jharkhand.

It has been alleged that Rahman basically worked as a middleman for recruiting young children for the AQIS through his religious preaching. When the joint team of Delhi and Odisha police picked him up from his house at Paschimagacha in Jagatpur police limits on December 16 last year, the police had found 85 children at his madrassa.

Earlier, senior STF officials had revealed that Rahman had worked as a facilitator in providing shelter to terrorist Sk. Salim, who is suspected to be involved in the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft in Kandahar in 1999.